


The Palace of the Last Queen

by lwise2019



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:01:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27915682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lwise2019/pseuds/lwise2019
Kudos: 7





	The Palace of the Last Queen

The Last Queen stumbled on a stone and fell to one knee. Around her on the mountainside, birds sang and butterflies visited their flowers while the gentle breeze rustled the green leaves of the trees. She glared around, thinking that someone might have seen, someone might have _laughed._ In the World-That-Was, she would have had any witnesses executed on the spot, but here there were no slaves to execute, no guards to carry out the orders of execution. Leaping to her feet, frustrated beyond endurance by this horrible empty world, she snarled a Word, the Deplorable Word, the Word that had destroyed the World-That-Was.

There was a sudden silence as the birds ceased to sing, the butterflies dropped to the ground, and even the cool breeze fell still. The leaves were still green, she saw, turning in a circle, but at least the birds —

The birds recovered from their momentary fear and began once more their courting songs. The breeze ruffled her long black hair and returned to play among the leaves. Even the butterflies untangled themselves from the grasses and returned to their flowers … all but one.

The Last Queen stared at that single dead butterfly, the only casualty of the Word that had annihilated a world, and she laughed a bitter, angry laugh. That was the way of things in this terrible new world. Very well. She would learn other magics and then … things would be different.

* * *

Hours later, she reached a deep gully where a stream chuckled cheerfully over the rocks as it hurried down into the lowlands to her right. She carefully followed it downstream, feeling the magic that swirled around the lowlands slowly growing stronger, seeping into her and making her stronger as well. Wary, she slowed as the slope grew less steep. A step forward … another step … another … she stopped, backed up hastily. Only by her firm determination to retain the dignity of a queen did she avoid gagging visibly at the smell, the terrible smell of the Tree that had been planted to keep her away.

Sitting on a half-buried boulder just outside the invisible barrier, she leaned back and felt the magic flow in. Moss grew on the boulder, she found, touching it with the tip of one finger, for all this world was not yet two months old. The Maker was careful and precise, she allowed grudgingly, but He was a Beast, and therefore foolish, so that He relied upon the Tree to keep her from His lands. Foolish that was, for she was immortal and the Tree was not. It would in time age and die and then, yes and _then,_ she would have her revenge.

Meanwhile, she was hungry and there were no slaves crouched by her side, waiting for an order. With the magic all around her, it took little effort for her to reach out and summon food to her. She raised the wand, she cast the spell, and somewhere far to the south, beyond the lowlands, a tiny crack began to form in the world.

Arriving in the form of a laden banquet table, the meal would have fed twenty. She devoured the roast beef, sampling the pork and the chicken, spurning the vegetables, for she was part giantess and craved only meat. Replete, she stood and continued on her way to the east, leaving the remaining food to be eaten by animals, the good silver to tarnish away, and the intricately carved table to rot.

The table had been laid for a king's visit to a knight, and because it vanished, the knight was taken for a wizard and executed, his fiefdom given to another and far less competent knight. Had she known this, she would have been quite indifferent to the effects of her actions, for she was the Last Queen, and all that there was, was hers when she chose to claim it.

* * *

The mountainside was growing steeper, and as she could not go down into the lowlands, she was forced to climb up. There was a cliff ahead, she saw, and must she make the long weary climb all the way to the top to get around it? But there, along the side of the cliff, she saw a ledge. She paused, frowning, examining the path. It ran quite a distance, perhaps even to the other side of the cliff where the land grew less steep again. And it was close, so close, to the lowlands and the source of magic, yet not so close as to push her into the barrier.

She felt the magic, looked hard at her wand, considered. Climbing up to the top of the mountain would take her far from the magic; edging along the ledge would keep her close but risked her finding herself at a dead end. Moreover, she saw water flowing over the ledge at one point, a flow that might be fast enough to sweep a climber off her feet and down to her death. Yet the magic was strong here, strong enough that she could freeze the water long enough for her to cross it in safety. She nodded, her decision made.

Her delicate court shoes would have been worn to rags in these weeks of travel, had her spells not transformed them so as to make them thick-soled and solid without changing their appearance. Likewise her gown would have been ripped and stained beyond salvaging had she not continually repaired and cleaned it through her magic. Thus, she remained every inch the Last Queen as she began her cautious journey along the ledge.

Pausing at the edge of the stream which ran across the ledge and down in a narrow waterfall, she looked to her left, examining the cave from which the water flowed. The opening was high enough for her to enter without bowing her head, despite her seven-foot height, and within she could see dry rock on either side of the stream. Curious, she stepped carefully into the cave.

Within, she conjured a witchlight and sent it slowly deeper, illuminating the vastness of it, for the cave was many times larger than the largest of the great halls of her castles in the World-That-Was. She laughed, and her laughter might have charmed anyone who did not see her cold eyes and the cruel twist of her lips. This, she thought, this cave overlooking the lowlands, would be her palace while she waited for the Tree to die.

A single spell smashed the stalagmites and flung the rubble out into the lowlands to do whatever damage it might; another spell, more carefully contrived, drew the stone of the floor across the stream which flowed through the cave, so that the water ran through a tunnel and she walked about dryshod. There was much work to be done to make this a palace fit for a queen — fit for the Last Queen — but it would be done.

In the end, the work took over a century.


End file.
